Awakening
by DdraigCoch
Summary: 13x66x13. In which they take some time to say goodbye. Please, remember to review!


Title: Awakening  
  
Author: DdC  
  
Fandom: Gundam Wing  
  
Pairing: Treize/Zechs  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Archive: Ask first, please.  
  
Feedback: Are you kidding, why do you think I'm writing this?! REVIEW!!!  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or anything to do with it. I make no money from this, and I mean no harm, so don't sue!  
  
Summery: Set just before Episode 18: Tallgeese destroyed. In which Trieze and Milliardo take some time to say goodbye.  
  
Note: First completed GW fic, so let me know if got the characters right and what-not. Written to the background of 'Rooster Cogburn'. REVIEW!  
  
He awoke in total bliss - he had no memories, no worries, he felt completely and utterly safe. There were warm fingers in his short hair, a pair of firm lips pressed gently to his smooth forehead and a heart beat thrummed delightfully in his ear from the comfortable body beneath him. His whole being was possibly more relaxed than it had ever been in the two decades he had been living. The all consuming warmth and his all consuming Love made him too lethargic to attempt moving from his current position cradled against the side of the man making him feel like the most important thing in the world. He felt too lethargic to even open his eyes, despite knowing that if he did he would be treated to the glorious sight of his love's bear chest rise and fall in tandem with his own. In the back of his ever thinking mind, there was a question that was, bit by bit, making itself know to him.   
  
The drumming heart became his whole world for a moment. Then there it was. The question. Why? Why in this golden cucoon of safety and warmth, did every heartbeat beg to be taken and tucked away safely? A shudder ran down his spine as memories crashed back into his mind and he bitterly wished that just this once his mind could have not questioned anything. The arm around his waist tightened a little.  
  
"Good Morning, Treize." The lips accompanied by a warm breath ghosted over his forehead, tickling his split eyebrows. It wasn't full light yet, the chill in the air told him that much, but it served to remind him what little time they actually had. So with his eyes still closed, he buried himself deeper into his lovers arms in a brave attempt to seem asleep.  
  
"You can't act, Treize." The smooth baritone that rumbled in his ears whispered sadly. "Not with me."  
  
Already discovered, Treize allowed himself to be moved even deeper into the embrace and hooked his arms tighter around the narrower waist. His eyes were kissed gently in turn with a tenderness that made him doubt the trustworthiness of his voice. "Please open your beautiful eyes, Treize." They were kissed again, "Let me see your amazing blue eyes?"  
  
Begging. The realization that his prince was actually begging him for anything hit him like a sledgehammer to an already cracking heart. Soft words tumbled from the lips that now brushed his, cajoling him to open his eyes. Instead he screwed his eyes up tighter against the tears that were slowly building, knowing that he was being childish, knowing that right now he couldn't be the perfect General. It hurt too damn much. The lips were removed in favor of a hand cupping his face, the thumb drawing a lazy circle on his cheek. Treize leaned into the touch, and despite himself, opened his eyes.  
  
"Milliardo..." His voice died after that, and he was obliged to gather himself in the face of the heartache all too evident on his love's face. After an age in which a thousand thoughts rushed through his mind, a surprising number involving persuading his lover to take up his Tallgeese and both of them stage their own spectacular revolution against those powers insisting that they split. And if they did? They would not last long, even if troops followed them. Another silly dream. "I think I hate Rommarfeller."  
  
His blonde lover smiled in understanding as he reached in to kiss him. It was a tender kiss, intended to calm them both and bring them back from unsteady ground. 'It's ok,' the kiss said 'I'm still here. I'm not gone yet.'  
  
"I don't want to go." Milliardo whispered fevrantly as their lips parted "Even if I survive, I'll be a dead man without you." Treize forced a smile onto his face.  
  
"Such a compliment" He almost choked on the words, but managed to get them past the lump that seemed to have developed in his throat.  
  
"It's true." His lover insisted, tracing patterns with his fingertips on the smooth plain of his back. The ice blue eyes were turned away from Treize's, to try and watch the muscles contract under his touch. "You're all that's good to me Treize. You are my better half." The eyes snapped back up again, capturing his own. They were clear and strong, as though he was no longer unsure of what he wanted to say or how to say it. "I belive I love you, Treize Kushrenada."  
  
Treize couldn't stop the tears from falling this time because he knew he wouldn't say the words back. It would make the parting too difficult for him to bear, so he would keep those words locked in his heart. But it didn't matter, because he knew Milliardo didn't need to hear it despite the salty tracks that were ovbiously making their own way down his lover and best friend's bravely smiling face.   
  
After their tears had dried, the sounds of feirce curses interrupted by the occasional dry sob lasted a long while.  
  
**************************************  
  
Treize dressed himself listlessly, unwilling to move quickly and hurry the inevitable. Milliardo watched him in silence, cradling the silver mask of his psydonym in his long hands, already immaculately dressed in his red uniform.  
  
The older man found the silence and the knowledge that his Milliardo was watching him unnerving for the first time in the long time he'd known the blonde. He knew why. The would be the final time they would be like this, as friends, as lovers, no matter how often they said 'After the war'. There would be no 'After' for them. Milliardo Peacecraft was already and enemy of Rommarfeller and the Alliance, now so was Zechs Marquise. And the Enemy simply had to be alliminated.  
  
He hadn't realized he was shaking until his lovers arms were wrapped around him, offering silent support if he needed it. It always amazed him how silently his Milliardo could move when he wanted to, Treize reflected as a chaste kiss was pressed to his temple.  
  
"Milliardo?" He asked, catching one of the hands holding him in both of his own and held it tight to his chest. It held them back, somehow managing to curl it's fingers around both.  
  
"Yes, Treize?" The deep voice rumbled on the back of his neck. Would he ever get to feel this again?  
  
"Promise me something?"  
  
"Anything." Soft hair brushed the side of his face when Milliardo rested his chin on his shoulder to nuzzle behind his ear. He smiled and leaned back into the touch.  
  
"Promise...promise me you'll come through this alive."  
  
The shorter silence this time was more uncomfortable, although Treize cherished the feel of warmth seeping through his uniform jacket from his lover's body.  
  
"Milli?" Treize asked, worried when Milliardo not only didn't resume his nuzzling but in fact withdrew as far as he could without loosing his hand from his lover's grip. His face was turned away from Treize, but with the absence of that ugly mask Treize could see the pain on the blonde's face and the glittering beginnings of tears in the ice blue eye. He wondered what part of what he'd said had brought this on and squeezed the hand he was still allowed to hold.  
  
"Milliardo?" he tried again. The younger man wiped at his face furiously, removing his remaining hand from Treize's grasp with a none too gentle tug. He avoided Treize's eyes in favor of gathering his mask from where he'd left it. Pausing in putting the mask on he turned around suddenly and within a few determined strides had kissed Treize passionately, leaving the OZ General breathing heavily.  
  
"You would not promise me any such thing, and I'd rather not promise something that could mean my living after those I love have died again." Trieze opened his mouth to protest but Milliardo placed a finger over his lips, silencing him "But, I will promise that I will not die before you."  
  
He left a confused and bereft Treize staring after him as he strode away down the hallway that led toward the Mobile Suite Hangers, sliding the helm of Zechs Marquise over his face as he did so. The last sight Treize had that stayed with him of his lover was of a tall, broad shouldered young man in military uniform red as blood, striding proudly away, his golden hair spreading behind him with more effect than his cape, and a silver mask glinting in the dim, early morning corridor.  
  
**********************************  
  
The test of both Tallgeese and it's pilot were long over by the time His Exellency returned to his quarters, the hour nearer dawn than dusk. Many destroyed suits were found, and Zechs died in a battle against overwhelming odds. A suitable end for the hero of OZ. The men were already mourning their idol, and Treize could see in their attitude that he was already loosing face with them for allowing this to happen. It was no secret that his second in command was, to put it lightly, out of favor with the powers that be over the last months. With a wry smile Treize punched his room code into the keypad. Perhaps it was his just punishment then, that he would fall slowly in the graces of both Rommafellar and his men.   
  
Officially. How Treize despised that word today. Officially Zechs had been overwhelmed. Officially the Gundams were under control. Officially Zechs and Tallgeese were both destroyed. Lies that were fed to the soldiery, all of them. Lies that would soon begin being fed to him when they realized how weakened he was with both Une and Zechs unable to support him.   
  
He decided as he dropped into his favorite chair with a weary sigh and carefully kept his back to the bed that the real problem of his situation was that he needed to know, one way or another, if his lover was indeed alive or dead. Unfortunately there was no proof one way or another to be found anywhere on the battlefield to prove what his heart cried out, that his friend was alive. He had to be. The alternative was simply too painful as an imaginary concept alone, and he knew the reality could brake him.  
  
Seeking refuge from these dark thoughts not for the first time since the battle he cast about for some of the inevitable paperwork that would usually scatter it. There was none, of course, because in an earlier attempt to distract himself he'd somehow managed to finish almost all of the paperwork that had built up over the last months. There was nothing there to distract him. No, not nothing, Sleep.   
  
Sleep, yes. Unconsciousness. Oblivion. Yes, even though he doubted it would work very well as his daydreams were already full of Milliardo.  
  
So for the first time he turned to face his bed, knowing full well that it would probably still be mussed from their lovemaking of the night before, and braced himself for the pain he would feel on seeing it. He was wrong. The bed linen was not fresh, no, but the bed was made even more crisply than usual, he'd never seen anything quite as smooth as those covers. But it wasn't that that made the first real smile come to his face all that hellishly long day. Lying on that impeccable bed linen, against the dark blue and in the direct path of a ray of dawn sunlight was a single, perfectly formed, white rose.   
  
It was a beautiful thing, that rose, sitting in the very center of his bed where it really had no business being in the first place. Not unless one of the few people with access to the room had left it there. Only one of those would do such a thing, and so it was - had to be - a message from Milliardo, because only he would think of doing something like this. Relief flew through his veins like an eagle over the mountains or a pilot through the air.   
  
Plucking the errant blossom from it's place he brought it to his face, trailing it along the same path as his lovers fingers had taken the night before so that, for a moment, he could imagine that the tanned fingers really were stroking his face. A small chuckle left his lips before they were better employed by pressing a tender kiss to the cool petals, foolishly hoping that wherever his lover was he could feel that kiss.   
  
"I'll never forget your promise, Milliardo. I'll never stop following you around." He whispered to the rose, dropping himself to the bed without any grace whatsoever. "I lo-care about you too much for that."  
  
Roses meant Remember, and with this message clasped in his hand as gently as a naked blade he finally dropped off to sleep.  
  
******************  
  
Miles away in the middle of a sparkling ocean, the cool ice blue eyes of a man currently without a name, and only one white rose petal in his jacket pocket, finally opened.  
  
Owari  
  
25 August 2003  
  
REVIEW!!!! 


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